New York Songlines: Worth Street

South: Western Union Building Block (60 Hudson): A 1930 Art Deco landmark from Ralph Walker, who also designed what is now the AT&T HQ. Still houses many communications firms; it's been said that "there is probably more bandwidth in and out of this building than any other in the world."

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North: Corner: Parking lot 1: Six stories built in 1915. 7: Four buildings from c. 1870 joined together in a condo development.

S <===     WEST BROADWAY     ===> N The block of Worth Street between West Broadway and Church Street is named Justice John M. Harlan Way in honor of the Supreme Court judge, a New York Law School graduate who supported civil rights and the First Amendment. Harlan had the same name as his grandfather who was also on the Supreme Court, where he was a supporter of Reconstruction.

South: Corner: Worthy Eyes, optician

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North: Corner (173 West Broadway): This was the original home of the Worth Street Theater group, now known as the Dog Run Repertory New York Law School 59 (corner): The main building of an institution founded in 1891 by Columbia Law faculty and students protesting interference by university trustees. Among its early lecturers were Woodrow Wilson and Charles Evans Hughes, and it counts among its graduates Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, Sen. Robert Wagner and poet Wallace Stevens.

S <===     BROADWAY     ===> N The boundary between Tribeca and Civic Center The section of Worth Street between Broadway and Centre Street was officially nicknamed "Avenue of the Strongest" in 1996 to honor New York City's sanitation workers.

South: Federal Plaza 26 Federal Plaza: Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building is named for the U.S. senator for New York from 1956 until 1980. He's remembered for his work passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the War Powers Act of 1973. They don't make Republicans like him anymore. The building, which houses the New York offices of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly the INS), was begun in 1963 to a design by Kahn & Jacobs et al, with an expansion completed 1977. The cast-iron pylon at the corner is part of a set of four called Manhattan Sentinels, a 1996 sculpture by Barbara Pepper. 1 Federal Plaza: Part of the Javits com- plex, this wing houses the U.S. Court of International Trade, formerly the U.S. Customs Court, which has jurisdiction over international trade disputes. The plaza here was the site of Richard Serra's Tilted Arc, a monumental metal sculpture installed in 1981 that was removed in 1989 due to public antipathy.

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North: Block (95 Worth): Saranac Apartments are a 16-story building from 2000, named for an Adirondack lake. On this block, at No. 340-344, was the Broadway Tabernacle, a Presbyterian church founded in 1836 by Rev. Charles Grandison Finney, whose passionate abolitionist sermons led a pro-slavery mob to burn down the church. Finney left for Oberlin, Ohio soon after (where he later became president of the college), and his replacement at the rebuilt church was anti-abolition, leading the members to switch denominations to Congregationalist, the first such church in Manhattan. It was the site of many abolitionist meetings, as well as the Women's Rights Movement Convention in September 1853, attended by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth and other leading early feminists. Later, in 1856, former President Millard Fillmore was nominated here as the candidate of the anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party. In 1857, the church sold its building to the Erie Railroad and moved to 6th Avenue and 34th Street. 111: A 2003 apartment building designed by Costas Kondylis for Forest City Ratner. Civic Deli seems to beat out Worth Cafe as the place to go for lunch at this address. Or you can skip lunch and get your hair cut at the City Hall Barber Shop.

S <===     LAFAYETTE STREET     ===> N

South: Foley Square Named for Tammany Hall leader Big Tom Foley in 1926, a year after his death. Foley, in addition to being an alderman, sheriff, Tammany district leader and a mentor of Alfred Smith, was a saloonkeeper, and his last joint was located where his square is now. The park in Foley Square is Thom- as Paine Park, commemorating the great advocate for the American Revolution, who died in New York City in 1809. It was dedicated to Paine in 1977. The sculpture in the fountain here is called The Triumph of the Human Spirit; the boat-like shape represents the slave trade and all U.S. immigration; the black granite forms that rise above the "boat" are patterned on African antelope carvings. There was an ob- scure TV show called Foley Square, a legal drama that ran for a few months in 1985-86. See a 360-degree panorama of Foley Square!

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North: Department of Health, Hospitals & Sanitation Block (75 Cen- tre): A "boxy neo- Class- ical cum Art Deco cube" (AIA Guide put up in 1935 to a Charles B. Meyers design. Bears the names of health- care pio- neers like Koch, Ehr- lich, Beh- ring, Harvey, Leewenhoek and Billings.

S <===     CENTRE STREET     ===> N This intersection would have been the southern shore of the Collect Pond before it was filled in.

South: State Court Building Corner (60 Centre): This hexag- onal build- ing with a Roman portico was originally the New York County Courthouse, replacing the Tweed Courthouse. Architect Guy Lowell won a 1912 design com- peti- tion, though the building was not completed until 1927. Above the columns is a quote from George Washington: "The true admin- istra- tion of justice is the firmest pillar of good government." The sculptures above the pediment represent Law, Truth and Equity. This imposing building often appears in films; Kris Kringle was tried here in Miracle on 34th Street, as was Charlie Sheen in Wall Street. Here Keanu Reeves acted as The Devil's Advocate, Henry Ford was one of Twelve Angry Men serving jury duty, a rival to The Godfather was assassinated on the steps and Ray Liotta testified against the Goodfellas-- to name just a few. The courthouse is built in part on the site of the Old Brewery, one of the filthiest and overcrowded dwellings in the notorious Five Points slum. In a plaza between Worth and Pearl streets are two 1906 sculptures by Philip Martiny, Justice and Authority. (Note the fasces, later adopted as the symbol of fascism, in Authority's hand.) They used to be in front of the Surrogate's Courthouse at Centre and Chambers, but had to be relocated when Centre was widened in 1961. 500 Pearl: The U.S. Courthouse Annex was built in 1995 and designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox with an interesting concave/convex shape. The courthouse is built on the site of the Grand Duke's Theater, then at the corner of Worth and Baxter. From about 1872 until 1887 it was run by a gang of former bootblacks and newsboys called the Baxter Street Dudes, who would write and perform their own plays, charging 5 cents admission. It became a tourist attraction; supposedly the Grand Duke of Moscovy attended a performance and gave the place its name, though I'm pretty sure this did not actually happen. Chatham Towers A 1964 co-op de- signed by Kelly & Gruzen for the Assoc- iation for Middle Income Housing, these 25-floor poured-concrete apartment buildings with a striking serrated profile have been hailed (and condemned) as striking examples of the Brutalist school of architecture.

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North: Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building 80 (block): This nine- story build- ing, de- signed by William Haugaard, was built from 1928-30 to house state government offices. (A decade earlier, the architect and his brother were shot by a deranged builder who blamed them for his financial ruin.) The building was renamed in 1984 to honor New York state's longest-serving attorney general, in office 1957 to 1978. The City Clerk and Mar- riage Bureau moved their offices here from the Municipal Building in 2009. Cor- ner: This is the only one of Five Points' points--i.e., corners--that is still intact, the others having been altered or removed by the addition or subtraction of streets in slum-clearing efforts. BAXTER ST         ===> N Five Points This intersection--once including the now demapped Park Street--was the center of the most notorious slum in America. Columbus Park This park was created in 1897 an effort to destroy the old Five Points neighborhood, considered to be Manhattan's most dangerous slum. (The park's southwest corner was one of the five points.) It was originally laid out by Calvert Vaux, who co-designed Central Park. The pavilion in the north end of the park is part of Vaux's original design. Earlier known as Mul- berry Bend Park or Five Points Park, it was renamed after Christopher Columbus in 1911 to honor the neighborhood's then-Italian population (though it is not much of an honor to be associated with a conquistador who was personally responsible for the deaths and enslavement of thousands of Native Americans). Now the main park of China- town, it's used by practitoners of Tai Chi, Kung Fu and Chinese chess. MULBERRY ST     ===> N 195 (corner): True Light Lutheran Church & School, "the first Chinese Lutheran Church in America," was founded in 1935 as the True Light Mission; this building was constructed in 1948. Corner (1 Mott): A four-story trapezoidal building that occupies the pointy end of an irregular four-sided block. Occupied by a dental clinic called Dr. Toothy's World. MOTT ST         ===> N Block (2 Mott): Wing Ming Building, a mirror-surfaced 11-story office tower, built 1978 by a Hong Kong businessman. Houses medical professionals.

W <===     PARK ROW / CHATHAM SQUARE     ===> E

West: Chatham Green Houses 185 (block): A 21-story public housing building put up in 1960 with an unusual serpentine form. Designed by Kelly & Gruzen, who also did Chatham Towers; Gruzen did One Police Plaza down the street. S <===         ST JAMES PL Corner (59 St. James Pl): 23: St. James Rectory Alfred E. Smith House 25: This three-story rowhouse was home to Smith from 1907 until 1924. He became speaker of the New York state assembly, New York County sheriff and then state governor while living here--hence his nickname "The King of Oliver Street." He later became the first Roman Catholic to be a major-party candidate for president, losing to Herbert Hoover in 1928. 31 (corner): Change Chinese Restaurant

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East: Kimlau Square Corner: An island in Chatham Square named for Benjamin Ralph Kimlau, a Chinese-American lieutenant in the Army Air Force who died on a bombing mission near New Guinea in World War II; he's the namesake of Chinatown's American Legion post, the largest in New York City. The square has a memorial arch for Chinese-Americans who "lost their lives in defense of freedom and democracy," as well as a statue of Lin Ze Xu, a Chi- nese official who tried to sup- press the opium trade, leading to conflict with Britain's East India Company and the Opium War. 23 Chatham Square: Asia Bank 2: St. Margaret's House is a project of Trinity Church--an old folks' residence with a thrift store and a cafeteria, both open to the public-- the cafeteria is quite inexpensive and has a beautiful outdoor dining area. Mariner's Temple 12 (corner): A Baptist church built in a Greek revival style in 1845, possibly designed by Isaac Lucas. It was intended to serve the spiritual needs of sailors. HENRY ST         ===> E PS 1: Alfred E. Smith School Corner (8 Henry): A public elementary school named for the neighborhood politician who became New York governor and later the first Roman Catholic major-party presidential candidate. Alfred E. Smith Playground Cor- ner: Nam- ed for the near- by school.

W <===     MADISON STREET     ===> E

Alfred E. Smith Houses 20 Madison Street: Twelve 17-story public housing buildings from 1950--named for the New York governor and presidential candidate.

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